In the 17th century, the Crimean peninsula turned out to be one of the fragments of the old Mongol empire - the Golden Horde. Local khans staged bloody invasions of Moscow several times during the time of Ivan the Terrible. However, every year it became more and more difficult for them to resist Russia alone.

Therefore it became a vassal of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire at this time reached the peak of its development. It extended over the territory of three continents at once. War with this state was inevitable. The first rulers of the Romanov dynasty looked closely at Crimea.

Prerequisites for the hikes

In the middle of the 17th century, a struggle broke out between Russia and Poland for Left Bank Ukraine. The dispute over this important region escalated into a long war. Eventually a peace treaty was signed in 1686. According to it, Russia received vast territories together with Kiev. At the same time, the Romanovs agreed to join the so-called Holy League of European Powers against the Ottoman Empire.

It was created through the efforts of Pope Innocent XI. Most of it was made up of Catholic states. The Republic of Venice and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth joined the league. It was this alliance that Russia joined. Christian countries agreed to act together against the Muslim threat.

Russia in the Holy League

Thus, in 1683, the Great War began. The main fighting took place in Hungary and Austria without the participation of Russia. The Romanovs, for their part, began to develop a plan to attack the Crimean Khan, a vassal of the Sultan. The initiator of the campaign was Queen Sophia, who at that time was the de facto ruler of a huge country. The young princes Peter and Ivan were only formal figures who did not decide anything.

The Crimean campaigns began in 1687, when a hundred thousandth army under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn went south. He was the head and therefore was responsible for the foreign policy of the kingdom. Under his banners came not only Moscow regular regiments, but also free Cossacks from Zaporozhye and the Don. They were led by Ataman Ivan Samoilovich, with whom Russian troops united in June 1687 on the banks of the Samara River.

Great importance was attached to the campaign. Sophia wanted to consolidate her own sole power in the state with the help of military successes. The Crimean campaigns were to become one of the great achievements of her reign.

First trip

Russian troops first encountered the Tatars after crossing the Konka River (a tributary of the Dnieper). However, the opponents prepared for an attack from the north. The Tatars burned out the entire steppe in this region, which is why the horses of the Russian army simply had nothing to eat. Terrible conditions meant that in the first two days only 12 miles were left behind. So, the Crimean campaigns began with failure. The heat and dust led to Golitsyn convening a council, at which it was decided to return to his homeland.

To somehow explain his failure, the prince began to look for those responsible. At that moment, an anonymous denunciation against Samoilovich was delivered to him. The ataman was accused of being the one who set fire to the steppe and his Cossacks. Sophia became aware of the denunciation. Samoilovich found himself in disgrace and lost his mace, a symbol of his own power. A Cossack Council was convened, where they elected ataman. This figure was also supported by Vasily Golitsyn, under whose leadership the Crimean campaigns took place.

At the same time, military operations began on the right flank of the struggle between Turkey and Russia. The army under the leadership of General Grigory Kosagov successfully captured Ochakov, an important fortress on the Black Sea coast. The Turks began to worry. The reasons for the Crimean campaigns forced the queen to give an order to organize a new campaign.

Second trip

The second campaign began in February 1689. The date was not chosen by chance. Prince Golitsyn wanted to reach the peninsula by spring to avoid the summer heat and the Russian army included about 110 thousand people. Despite the plans, it moved rather slowly. The Tatar attacks were sporadic - there was no general battle.

On May 20, the Russians approached the strategically important fortress of Perekop, which stood on a narrow isthmus leading to the Crimea. A shaft was dug around it. Golitsyn did not dare to risk people and take Perekop by storm. But he explained his action by the fact that there were practically no drinking wells with fresh water in the fortress. After a bloody battle, the army could be left without a livelihood. Envoys were sent to the Crimean Khan. Negotiations dragged on. Meanwhile, the loss of horses began in the Russian army. It became clear that the Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689. will lead to nothing. Golitsyn decided to turn the army back a second time.

Thus ended the Crimean campaigns. Years of effort have not given Russia any tangible dividends. Her actions distracted Turkey, making it easier for the European allies to fight her on the Western Front.

Overthrow of Sophia

At this time in Moscow, Sophia found herself in a difficult situation. Her failures turned many boyars against her. She tried to pretend that everything was fine: she congratulated Golitsyn on his success. However, already in the summer there was a coup d'état. Supporters of young Peter overthrew the queen.

Sophia was tonsured a nun. Golitsyn ended up in exile thanks to the intercession of his cousin. Many supporters of the old government were executed. Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 led to Sophia being isolated.

Further Russian policy in the south

Later he also tried to fight with Turkey. His Azov campaigns led to tactical success. Russia has its first naval fleet. True, it was limited to the internal waters of the Sea of ​​​​Azov.

This forced Peter to pay attention to the Baltic, where Sweden ruled. Thus began the Great Northern War, which led to the construction of St. Petersburg and the transformation of Russia into an empire. At the same time, the Turks recaptured Azov. Russia returned to the southern shores only in the second half of the 18th century.

CRIMINAL CAMPAIGNS, campaigns of Russian troops under the command of the boyar Prince V.V. Golitsyn against the Crimean Khanate during the Russian-Turkish war of 1686-1700. According to the articles of the “Eternal Peace” of 1686, the Russian state pledged to break the Bakhchisarai Peace of 1681 with the Ottoman Empire, protect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the raids of the Crimean Khans, and also encourage the Don Cossacks to make a campaign against the Crimean Khanate in 1687. The Crimean campaigns were undertaken to stop the Crimean and Turkish raids on the southern outskirts of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and protect trade routes, as well as to divert the forces of the Crimean Tatars from their possible participation in military operations on the Dniester and Prut.

The plan of the first campaign of 1687 provided for the offensive of Russian troops in combination with the actions of the Don and Ukrainian Cossacks. The Don Cossacks, led by Ataman F. M. Minaev, were sent to strike the right flank of the Crimean Tatars, and the Ukrainian Cossacks of the Chernigov Colonel G. I. Samoilovich, together with the governor of the Sevsky Regiment, Okolnichy L. R. Neplyuev, were sent to the lower Dnieper to the Tatar fortress Kyzy-Kermen (Kazy-Kermen). These actions forced the Crimean Khan Selim Girey I to concentrate all his efforts on the defense of his possessions, and as a result he was unable to provide assistance to the Turkish troops operating against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Austria and Venice. Russian troops gathered in several places: the Big Regiment (close boyar Prince V.V. Golitsyn, boyar Prince K.O. Shcherbatov, okolnichy V.A. Zmeev) - in Akhtyrka; Novgorod category (boyar A.S. Shein, okolnichy prince D.A. Baryatinsky) - in Sumy; Ryazan category (boyar Prince V.D. Dolgorukov, okolnichy P.D. Skuratov) - in Khotmyzhsk; Sevsky Regiment - in Krasny Kut. The regimental commanders set out from Moscow on 22.2 (4.3).1687. At the beginning of May 1687, about 60 thousand soldiers, archers, spearmen, reiters, as well as 50 thousand noble cavalry and artillery were concentrated on the Merlo River. Approximately 67% of the Russian army were regiments of the new system. On the Samara River she was joined by Ukrainian Cossacks (up to 50 thousand) under the command of Hetman of Left Bank Ukraine I.S. Samoilovich. On June 13 (23), 1687, the Russian army, having covered only 300 km in 6 weeks, camped in the Bolshoy Lug tract. The next day, the Russian army began moving towards the Or (Perekop) fortress. Having learned about the approach of the Russians, the Tatars burned the grass over a large area, depriving the Russian army of pasture for their horses. On June 14-15 (24-25), the army advanced less than 13 km, experiencing great difficulties due to the lack of water and fodder. Golitsyn convened a military council at the Karachakrak River, at which it was decided to return to the Russian state. On July 12 (22), Duma clerk F.L. Shaklovity arrived at Golitsyn on the Orel River with proposals from Princess Sofia Alekseevna to continue military operations, and if impossible, to build fortresses on the Samara and Orel rivers and leave garrisons and equipment there to protect the Left Bank Ukraine from raids of the Crimean Tatars [in the summer of 1688, the Novobogoroditskaya fortress was built (now on the territory of the village of Shevchenko, Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine), where the Russian-Cossack garrison was located and over 5.7 thousand tons of food were concentrated]. During their return from the 1st Crimean campaign, I. S. Mazepa and V. L. Kochubey drew up a false denunciation against Hetman I. S. Samoilovich, in which, among other things, they accused the hetman of being an opponent of the Russian-Polish alliance, erroneously advised to go on a campaign in the spring, initiated the arson of the steppe. 22-25.7 (1-4.8).1687 at the so-called Kolomak Rada, I. S. Samoilovich was deposed, and Mazepa was elected the new hetman. 14(24).8.1687 the Russian army returned to the bank of the Merlo River, where it was dispersed to their homes. The government of Princess Sofia Alekseevna, despite the obvious failure of the enterprise, recognized the campaign as a success and awarded its participants.

Sofya Alekseevna 18(28).9.1688 announced the need for a new Crimean campaign. The Russian command took into account the lessons of the first campaign and planned to begin the second in early spring, so that the cavalry in the steppe would be provided with pasture. At the same time, in 1689, the foreign policy situation of the Russian state became more complicated, since, contrary to the conditions of the “Eternal Peace” of 1686, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began peace negotiations with the Ottoman Empire. To set out on the second campaign of 1689, Russian troops again gathered in different places: the Great Regiment (Golitsyn, steward Prince Ya. F. Dolgorukov, Zmeev) - in Sumy; Novgorod category (Shane, steward Prince F. Yu. Baryatinsky) - in Rylsk; Ryazan category (V.D. Dolgorukov, Duma nobleman A.I. Khitrovo) - in Oboyan; Sevsky Regiment (L. R. Neplyuev) - in Mezherechy; The Kazan regiment (boyar B.P. Sheremetev), including a special regiment of the Lower Nobles (okolnichy I.Yu. Leontiev, steward Dmitriev-Mamonov), is in Chuguev. On April 15-18 (25-28), troops (about 112 thousand people) united on the Orel River, artillery numbered up to 350 guns. On the Samara River on April 20 (30), the army was joined by a detachment of Cossacks (about 40 thousand people) of the Hetman of Left Bank Ukraine I. S. Mazepa. The Russian army advanced south in the same marching order as in 1687. To repel the offensive of the Russian army, Selim Giray I gathered an army numbering up to 160 thousand people. On May 13 (23), a Tatar detachment (10 thousand people) attacked the Russian camp located on the Koirka River. The next day, the main forces of the Tatars attacked Golitsyn’s army at the Black Valley tract, but, having suffered heavy losses from Russian artillery fire, retreated. Having repulsed the attacks of the Tatar cavalry, the Russian army moved in the direction of the Kalanchak River and on May 20 (30) approached Perekop. The main forces of the Tatars surrounded the Russian army, but their attacks were again repelled mainly by artillery fire. Golitsyn entered into negotiations with representatives of the khan, demanding the return of all Russian prisoners captured during the Crimean raids, stopping the raids, refusing tribute, not attacking the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and not helping the Ottoman Empire. On May 22 (June 1) the demand was rejected by the khan. The power of the Perekop fortifications and the fact that the Russian army was weakened by disease and lack of water forced Golitsyn to retreat, abandoning some of the guns. On May 29 (June 8), Russian regiments pursued by the Tatar cavalry reached the southern borders of the Russian state. On June 19 (29), the army was disbanded. The government of Sofia Alekseevna solemnly welcomed Golitsyn in Moscow.

Despite the ineffectiveness of the Crimean campaigns, the Russian state made a significant contribution to the fight against Turkish aggression in Europe. It diverted the main forces of the Crimean Tatars, and the Ottoman Empire lost the support of the numerous Crimean cavalry. However, the Crimean campaigns did not solve the problems of protecting the southern borders of the Russian state and eliminating the source of possible aggression in Crimea. The main reasons for the failures of the Crimean campaigns were: the incompleteness of military reforms of the mid-17th century in the Russian state; the existence, along with the regiments of the new system, of the outdated noble local army and detachments of archers, distinguished by poor discipline; insufficient experience of V.V. Golitsyn as an army commander; dispersion of army control between various government institutions, etc. The lessons of the Crimean campaigns were taken into account by Tsar Peter I in the Azov campaigns of 1695-96.

Source: Correspondence of Patriarch Joachim with the governors who were in the Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689. / Comp. L. M. Savelov. Simferopol, 1906; Neuville de la. Notes about Muscovy. M., 1996.

Lit.: Ustryalov N. G. History of the reign of Peter the Great. St. Petersburg, 1858. T. 1; Golitsyn N.S. Russian military history. St. Petersburg, 1878. Part 2; Belov M.I. On the history of diplomatic relations of Russia during the Crimean campaigns // Uch. zap. LSU. 1949. T. 112; Babushkina G.K. International significance of the Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 // Historical notes. 1950. T. 33; Bogdanov A.P. “True and true legend” about the 1st Crimean campaign // Problems of studying narrative sources on the history of the Russian Middle Ages. M., 1982; aka. Moscow journalism of the last quarter of the 17th century. M., 2001; Lavrentyev A.V. “Note to the sovereign’s measuring versts and camp of that Crimean campaign along the measuring versts wheel” 1689 // Natural scientific ideas of Ancient Rus'. M., 1988; Artamonov V. A. Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Crimea 1686-1699 // Slavic collection. Saratov, 1993. Issue. 5; Stevens S. V. Soldiers on the steppe: army reform and social change in early modern Russia. DeKalb, 1995.

About the secret mission to Crimea (under Peter I) about the transition of Crimea to Russian citizenship

NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT THE TRANSITION OF THE CRIMEAN KHANATE TO RUSSIAN NATIONALITY UNDER PETER THE GREAT

The topic of negotiations on the transition of Crimea to Russian citizenship in the first half of the Northern War of 1700-1721 was not touched upon by anyone except the Polish historian Yu. Feldman, who in his book cited two lengthy extracts from the report of the Saxon ambassador in St. Petersburg Loss to Augustus II. Locc reported on the preparation of a secret mission by the tsar to the Crimea in 1712. 1 And although the negotiations ended in vain, nevertheless, in the Crimean direction, as well as in the Balkans, Caucasus and Far East, Peter I blazed real paths for his descendants.

At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century. The Crimean Khanate remained a large military-feudal state formation, which, under the threat of devastating raids, kept the population of vast territories of Europe, right up to Voronezh, Lvov and Vienna, in fear.

In the system of the Ottoman Empire, Crimea enjoyed the widest autonomy of all the vassal principalities - it had an army, a monetary system, an administrative apparatus and the right of external relations with its neighbors. But, being a powerful military shoulder for the Tatars, the Porte greatly limited their autonomy. The feudal lords of Crimea were afraid that “they would be completely destroyed by the Turks”

Turkish cities and fortresses scattered throughout the Khanate - Bendery, Kaffa, Kerch, Ochakov, Azov - fettered the nomads, and the income from trade in these cities bypassed the treasury of the khans. The appointment of Turkish judges and officials in the areas under the jurisdiction of Bakhchisaray, for example in Budzhak, as well as the Turks’ incitement of hostility between the Murzas, were irritating.

The foreign policy goals of Istanbul and Bakhchisaray also differed.

From the end of the 17th century. Crimea sought to maintain peaceful relations with the clearly weakening Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and, if possible, drive a wedge between it and Russia, completely subjugate the Circassians of the North Caucasus, push Russia’s military potential away from its borders and achieve the resumption of payment of Russian “commemorations” - tribute. The Khans of Crimea, as “experts” on Polish and Russian issues, “took over” in the 17th century. mediation in matters with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian state.

Crimean, not Ottoman, troops were the main enemy of Russia in the south until the 18th century. Crimea’s claims to the Middle Volga region were not forgotten either. Under Khan Muhammad-Girey (1654-1666), an agreement was concluded with the Polish king John II Casimir on the annexation of the former territories of the Astrakhan and Kazan khanates to the Crimea. In relations with the tsars, the rulers of the Crimea were guided by the outdated concept that they were (at least formally) tributaries of the Khanate. The khans' claims to the steppe Zaporozhye were quite real.

In contrast to the Khanate of Porta, for tactical reasons at the end of the 17th - in the first decade of the 18th century. sought to maintain peaceful relations with both the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Petrine Russia, since the greatest threat to it at that time came from the Habsburg monarchy.

The obligation to supply Tatar warriors to the Balkan and Hungarian fronts, labor for the construction of new Turkish fortresses - Yenikale and Temryuk in 1702-1707, as well as prohibitions on raiding Ukraine (up to orders to give up full and loot) aroused strong discontent. The historical self-awareness of the Girays - the descendants of Genghis Khan - allowed them not to consider themselves inferior to European kings, kings, and sultans.

The khans were painfully aware of the infringement of their liberties. (First of all, Turkish tyranny during their replacement.) They sought to ensure that the “kings of the kings of the Universe” - the Turkish sultans - give them at least lifelong confirmation for the position.

Perhaps a complex of such political differences was the reason for the negotiations on the transition of the “Great Horde of the right and left hands” to Russian citizenship in 1701-1712.

In the XV-XVI centuries. Kasimov, Volga and Siberian Tatars lived in Russia. Moscow's protectorate over the Kazan Khanate was first established in 1487. Ivan the Terrible completely subjugated the Tatar "kingdoms" in Kazan and Astrakhan.

The Siberian “kingdom” from 1555 to 1571 recognized vassal dependence on Russia on the terms of paying an annual tribute in furs, and in 1582 it was conquered. But Russian campaigns along the Dnieper, Don and from Taman in 1555, 1556, 1558, 1560. did not lead to the conquest of the fourth Tatar “kingdom” - in the Black Sea region. Nevertheless, in 1586, Tsarevich Murat-Girey (son of Khan Devlet-Girey I), who went over to the side of Moscow, was sent to serve in Astrakhan, and the Russian government was going to place him in Bakhchisarai.

In 1593, the government of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich agreed to send “an army with fiery battle” to the aid of Khan Gazi-Girey, who was going to “transfer all the Crimean uluses to the Dnieper and straight away from the Turks” and be with Russia “in brotherhood, friendship and peace and Crimean Yurt with the Moscow state... to be eaten." The traditions of allegiance of the Nogai hordes to the Russian tsars can be called centuries-old. They depended on Moscow in 1557-1563, 1590-1607, 1616-1634, 1640.

From the end of the 17th century. Vlachs and Moldovans, Serbs and Montenegrins, Ukrainians from Right Bank Ukraine, Greeks, Hungarians, peoples of the North Caucasus and Central Asia (Khivans) applied for release and acceptance into Russian citizenship. Russian-Crimean relations have never been exclusively hostile, and the theme of Russian-Crimean mutual assistance and alliances in the 15th-17th centuries. still awaiting its researchers.

After the Azov campaigns, the situation on the border became unfavorable for the Crimean Yurt. Peter I, having strengthened the outpost fortresses in the south - Azov, Taganrog, Kamenny Zaton, Samara, tried to block the northern borders of the Khanate's nomads. On a small section of the Russian-Turkish border near Azov and Taganrog, the Ottoman authorities tried to prevent its violation by the Tatars and insisted on the speedy demarcation of the Nogai steppes. However, in the Dnieper region, on the Azov seaside and the Don, the “small war” never stopped. Neither the Turkish, nor the Moscow, nor the Hetman administration could keep the Nogais, Donets, Crimeans, Cossacks, Kalmyks, Circassians and Kabardians from mutual raids. At the beginning of the 18th century. Nogais literally rushed about in search of a new tread. Among them, revolts periodically broke out “against the Khan and the Turk.” Hetman Mazepa wrote to Peter I that “there are voices throughout the Crimea that the Belogorodsk Horde has the intention of beating you, the great sovereign, with its forehead, asking that you be accepted under the sovereign hand of your royal majesty.”

In 1699, 20 thousand Budzhak Nogais really rebelled against Bakhchisarai, “expecting help and mercy” either from the Sultan or from the Tsar, and “if they were completely refused by the Turks, they want to bow to the Poles, which is already sent there."

The rebels were led by the brother of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey II Nuraddin Gazi-Girey, who went with the Nogais to Bessarabia, to the Polish borders. In addition to contacts with the Polish king, in 1701 Gazi-Girey, through Mazepa, asked the “white king” to accept him “as a citizen of the Belogorod Horde” 9. (In the same year, the Armenian meliks of Karabakh asked Peter I to liberate Armenia, at the same time the Georgian kings of Imereti , Kakheti and Kartli turned to Russia with the same request 10.)

In 1702, Kubek-Murza came to Azov with a request for Russian protection over the Kuban Nogais. However, the Russian government, not risking breaking the peace with the Porte, informed the Sultan of its refusal to the Nogais.

Under military pressure from the Janissaries and Crimean troops, Gazi-Girey fled to Chigirin, then went to war and was sent to Fr. Rhodes.

The freedom of maneuver of Crimean diplomacy was expanded by the attractiveness of the “Threshold of the Highest Happiness” - Bakhchisarai for Muslims of Eastern Europe and Central Asia as an outpost of Islam.

Partial relief for the khans was that the Russian outskirts, where the traditions of freedom were not destroyed by the autocracy - the Astrakhan region, the region of the Don and Zaporozhye Army, Bashkiria - did not immediately submit to Russian absolutism. Just in the first decade of the 18th century. the population of the outskirts tried to get rid of the burden that tsarism had placed on them. But all the uprisings that broke out almost simultaneously - on the Don, in Zaporozhye (1707-1708), in Astrakhan (1705-1706), in Bashkiria (1705-1711), mass desertion from the army, increased robbery and unrest in Central Russia (1708 and 1715) occurred in isolation. The rebels could not use each other's support and tried to rely on external forces - Turkey, Crimea, Sweden.

With such instability in Baturin, and then in Moscow, information spread about the intention of the Crimean Khan to transfer to Russian citizenship. On December 26, 1702, the Ottoman government, dissatisfied with the insufficient information of Devlet-Girey II about the strengthening of Russian fortresses and the Azov fleet, appointed his father, the 70-year-old old man Hadji-Selim-Girey I (December 1702 - December 1704). Devlet-Girey by that time had proved himself to be a brave and skillful ruler (in 1683 he fought in Austria) and enjoyed authority among the Tatar Murzas. The deposed khan disobeyed the order, again raised the Nogais and sent troops under the command of his brother Kalgi Saadet-Girey to Budzhak, to Akkerman and Izmail. Along the way, the rebels burned several Ukrainian villages. 12. The “spawn of vipers,” as Mazepa called the Cossacks, also joined the rebellious khan. The rebels spread the rumor that they were marching on Istanbul.

Apparently, at the end of 1702 - beginning of 1703, Devlet-Girey, in search of additional support, sent two envoys to Mazepa in Baturin - Akbir and Absuut, according to Mazepa, to persuade him and the Cossacks to “revolt” against the tsar 13.

At the beginning of 1703, the Ottoman government equipped a fleet from Sinop to “pacify the pride of the Crimean Tatars” and ordered Hadji-Selim-Girey to lead against the rebels of the Black Sea and Kuban Nogais 14.

The Ottoman government exhorted the Cossacks not to enter into treaty (allied) relations with the Crimeans, because “the Tatars, who are invited and accept friendship with them, then they trample him with their horses.” 15. The Belgorod rebellion was suppressed 16. Devlet-Girey, who left the Crimea , had to stop with Ochakov, then he moved to Ukraine, finally retreated to Kabarda, and later confessed to his father. The Cossacks had to ask for the Sultan's and Crimean protectorate from Selim-Girey I. But the Ottoman government, as well as the earlier Russian government in relation to the Budzhak Nogais, through Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy verbally promised not to accept them into Turkish citizenship.

In January 1703 (or, perhaps, in December 1702) the former captain, Moldavian Alexander Davydenko, who had left his land “for the wrath of the ruler” and intended to enter the Russian service, came to Mazepa.

Judging by the surviving autograph letters in poor Russian and Polish, Davydenko earlier, during the third reign of Hadji Selim Giray I (1692-1699), served in the Crimea and heard that most of the Murzas and beys asked the Sultan to restore the deposed Devlet- Girey, with whom the Moldovan had a chance to talk. Devlet-Girey allegedly told him that he was ready, together with the beys, “to bow to the almighty royal power and go to war against the Turk.” There is nothing unusual in the fact that the khan, who was losing ground under his feet in 1702, found out the positions of Mazepa and Moscow. The motives for the behavior of Davydenko, who energetically set about establishing contacts between the rebellious khan and the tsar, are easily explained. He, like many of the Balkan Christians, proposed a far from new project for the liberation of his homeland from the Turks by the forces of the Orthodox Tsar. What was original in it was only an indication of the possibility of using the separatism of the Crimean feudal lords 19. In the Polish version of Davydenko’s letter it is more definitely stated that he persuaded the khan with his entire army to seek support from Peter I and would like to convey advice to the tsar himself about waging the Turkish and “Swedish” wars 20.

A skillful and cautious diplomat, Mazepa, whose authority and experience was highly valued by the Moscow government, characterized Davydenko as “a person who clearly does not know a secret, or does not know how to keep it with him,” because of which, supposedly, not only the Wallachian ruler K . Brynkovyanu, but also the entire Wallachian people. In the summer of 1703, Mazepa was going to send Davydenko to Wallachia and wrote to Brynkovyanu “to take him away from that language.” But on July 30, Davydenko sent Mazepa from Fastov a new project for organizing a common Wallachian-Crimean-Ukrainian front against the Turks. The capital became interested in this project, and Davydenko was in Moscow for a year and three months from 1704. It was dealt with not only by the Ambassadorial and Little Russian orders, but also by the head of the government, Admiral F. A. Golovin, and even the Tsar himself, judging by the notes in the notebook of Peter I for 1704: “About David... the man that the Danish envoy has, should he let him go? About Voloshenin, who was brought by the Danskaya, and what does the Multyanskaya say about him?" 23

The topic was a secret, they wrote about it in silence, not all documents are yet known. But we know the decision of the Russian government on the issue of accepting the Khanate into Russian citizenship: as in 1701 - in the case of Gazi-Girey, it was negative. In the conditions of the Northern War, it was risky to aggravate relations with the Ottoman Empire on the Crimean issue. In addition, the rebellion of Devlet-Girey was suppressed, and the new khan Gazi-Girey III (1704-1707) did not want or could not “show”, as in 1701, his previous “goodwill” towards Russia. Moscow had information that a Tatar raid on Kyiv and Sloboda Ukraine was being prepared in order to prevent the strengthening of Russian-Polish relations after the Treaty of Narva in 1704, which formalized the entry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into the Northern War. 24. The new Crimean administration detained a messenger from Mazepa to Gazi-Girey with congratulations and a gift from the convoy Troshchinsky under the pretext that he was a spy, and demanded the return of her former envoys Akbir and Absuut, exiled to Solovki. Although the envoy of Gazi-Girey in May-June 1705 promised Mazepa “privately the khan’s affection,” the Crimean feudal lords demanded compensation for Cossack raids on the Tatars 25. Therefore, F. A. Golovin’s hint that Russia would favorably agree to consider a change in political the fate of Crimea, was excluded from the new edition of Admiral I. S. Mazepa’s letter dated February 5, 1705 and replaced by the wish to live in peace and friendship.

Refusing to begin new relations with the Sultan's vassals, the Russian government thus sought to neutralize the ties of its Turkic peoples and Kalmyks with Istanbul and Crimea. In Moscow, they knew well about the secret contacts of Khan Ayuki with Bakhchisaray, the governors from the Volga reported about the possible departure of some Kalmyks to the Crimean Khanate, 27, and Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy from Istanbul reported about the connections of Khan Ayuki with the Sultan. At the end of 1703 or at the beginning of 1704, Khan Ayuka, through the Nogai envoy Ish Mehmel Agu, sent Sultan Ahmed III an act of oath of loyalty and submission with a reminder that the Kalmyk khans had already twice turned to his predecessors since 1648 with a request to transfer to the Ottoman Empire. citizenship 28.

It was considered risky to start a serious deal with Crimea through such an untested communication channel as Davydenko, and Ambassador P. A. Tolstoy was instructed to assure Ahmed III that the Tsar would not accept anyone into Russian citizenship and expected the same from the Porte in relation to the nomadic peoples of Russia.

In Moscow, Davydenko was given forty sables worth 50 rubles. and by decree of the tsar he was sent to Kyiv, where he was “politically” detained for a year and two months, although he himself continued to hope that he would be transported under the guise of a merchant across the Sich to Bakhchisarai 30. All this time Mazepa kept him “under a strong guard”, not even allowing him to attend church, and then sent him to Moldova in chains 31. From F.A. Golovin, the Moldavian received a not very flattering description 32.

The next khan Kaplan-Girey I (August 1707 - December 1709), who ruled in Crimea three times (the last time in 1730-1736), was an irreconcilable opponent of Moscow. 1708 was a critical stage for Russia in the Northern War. Charles XII was advancing on Moscow, the south and east of the country were engulfed in uprisings. The hetman's troops were going to be used in Moscow against a possible union of the Don rebels with the Tatars and Cossacks, but in October 1708 Mazepa changed his mind. In order to drag Crimea into the war, he promised to pay Kaplan-Girey the tribute that Moscow had dumped in 1685-1700, and promised to convince the Polish king Stanislaus I to give up all the unpaid “grub” of Poland over the past years. Kaplan-Girey sought permission from Istanbul to unite with the Swedes in Ukraine. G.I. Golovkin sent P.A. Tolstoy a request: did the Porte really allow Crimea to demand the previous “commemoration” tribute from Russia?

The Ottomans were again reminded of Russia’s refusal to accept the Nogais, hoping for reciprocity from Istanbul regarding the rebel Don 3

The situation was unexpectedly defused by the deposition of Kaplan-Girey in December 1709 as a result of the defeat of his troops by the Kabardians at Mount Kanzhal 35.

On January 3, 1709, P. A. Tolstoy from Istanbul through Azov sent envoy Vasily Ivanovich Blyokly to congratulate his old acquaintance, Devlet-Girey II, on his second elevation to the Bakhchisarai throne and to thank him for the “sincere friendly announcement” that the khan conveyed to the Russian embassy in Istanbul upon his departure to Crimea on December 14, 1708, the Russian ambassador asked to extradite the Nekrasovites who had gone to the Nogais in Kuban, but in reality Blyokly was supposed to prevent the Tatar-Swedish rapprochement in Ukraine 36. There is nothing incredible in the fact that Devlet-Girey II was sent 10 thousand ducats as “the amount due to him before the war, in order to appease him with this and get him into his party” 37. Khan, taking care of restoring the former prestige of Crimea and traditional forms of Russian-Crimean relations (since 1700, Russia interrupted official relations with the Khanate as with a full-fledged state), during conversations on June 10-13, 1709, he reproached Blyoklom for the fact that the tsar had stopped writing on his behalf to the Crimea, that correspondence with Istanbul was conducted through the head of the khan, that the Russians were complaining to the padishah about minor border incidents. According to A. Davydenko, recorded later, in 1712, the khan was allegedly interested in why the Russian government was slow to respond to his proposal to transfer the khanate to the side of Russia. 38 Judging by Blyokly’s reports, the khan on June 13, 1709 said vaguely: . The Turks don’t like you... Both Crimea and I so want Moscow and Crimea to be one land... If the country of the Tsar’s Majesty were completely in alliance with me, then there would not be a Swede in your land. And the Poles, nor the Cossacks, did not rebel against you. They all look at me" 39.

Devlet-Girey II avoided talking about the extradition of the Nekrasovites along with their ataman I. Nekrasov and about the specific details of the alliance, but he accepted the gifts and, well aware of the difficult condition of Charles XII in Ukraine, promised “to keep his Tatars and other peoples in fear, so that did not cause any offense to the Russian people, about which decrees were sent out from him” 40. The khan did not raise the issue of resuming the “wake.” In Crimea at that time there was a rumor that the tsar, having offered Devlet-Girey II gold, treasures and the rank of governor in the Kazan land, nevertheless received a refusal: “I don’t want either stings or honey from the tsar * 41.

In general, Bakhchisarai, like Istanbul, satisfied the position of Russia, which fought on the front from Finland to Ukraine, and Russian diplomacy established quite satisfactory relations with Crimea and the Porte in the pre-Poltava period. Neither Swedish, nor Polish, nor Mazepa, nor Nekrasov embassies to Crimea yielded results. The Porta did not allow the Tatar cavalry to appear near Poltava.

The Poltava victory over the Swedes on June 27, 1709 led to the confirmation of the Russian-Turkish truce of 1700 on January 3, 1710. It was possible to swing Sultan Ahmed III into war with Peter I only after a powerful diplomatic onslaught of a surging wave of emigrants - Charles XII, supporters of Stanislav Leszczynski, Mazepa and the Cossacks After the Turks declared war on Russia in November 1710, the Russian government, recalling secret contacts with the Crimeans and Nogais, called not only Christians, but also Muslims of the Ottoman Empire to come under the protectorate of the tsar, promising the latter an expansion of their autonomy. In manifestos to the Nogais of all hordes and Crimeans, Peter I referred to the call of the Budzhaks and Gazi-Girey to Russia in 1701. 42 Among the Orthodox, Montenegrins, Serbs and Moldavians rose up to fight the Turks, and among the Muslims, Kabardians. In mid-June 1711, information was received from defectors that the Budzhak Horde would not fight and was ready to transfer to Russian citizenship on the terms of paying a certain tribute in cattle 43.

The Crimean troops fought successfully in 1711. In winter, Devlet-Girey II sent his cavalry to Kyiv and the Voronezh shipyards and captured several thousand full. In the summer, the Tatars successfully prevented the expedition of I.I. Buturlina from Kamenny Zaton to Perekop. But most importantly, they cut off all rear communications of the Russian army in Moldova and the Black Sea region and, together with the Turks, tightly blocked it at Stanilesti.

These military merits allowed Devlet-Girey to believe that the main demand of the Khanate - the restoration of the Russian "commemoration" - tribute would be included in the Treaty of Prut. This was promised on the Prut, although not in writing, but in words.

After the second declaration of war in 1711, Devlet-Girey insisted on a concession to the Crimean Khanate of Zaporozhye and Right Bank Ukraine 44. However, the Turkish side, having achieved the main goal - Azov, wanted to end things peacefully as soon as possible and did not insist on the Tatar demands. The persistent defense of the interests of the Crimea by Devlet-Girey II caused discontent among the highest dignitaries of the Porte, who intended to remove the overly zealous khan 45.

On February 20, 1712, in the midst of another aggravation of the conflict with Turkey, General K. E. Renne sent an old acquaintance Davydenko to the headquarters of Field Marshal B. P. Sheremetev in Priluki, who by that time had managed to serve both the Polish king and the Russian Tsar (in the division General Janus von Eberstedt). On February 24, the Moldavian reported a very incredible thing: Devlet-Girey and the Crimean Murzas are asking the field marshal and the tsar for “a secret rebuke...whether they want to accept him on the side of the Tsar’s Majesty or not,” as well as “the points at which he should be granted citizenship” 46. Davydenko had no supporting documents, except for the travel document to Moscow issued by the khan. The Khan explained the reason for his appeal to the Tsar by the Turkish arbitrariness over him 47 and conveyed that his anti-Russian position was only “for face, so that the Turk would show his goodwill... And to the King of Sweden it seemed that in virtue it was mostly all about money” 48.

Davydenko proposed the following plan: with the help of the khan, to capture Charles XII and the Mazeppians in Moldavia 49. The temptation to capture the Swedish king, who had eluded his hands three times (at Poltava, Perevolochnaya and Ochakov), forced the Russian government to turn a blind eye to the hostile actions of the khan in Istanbul and Ukraine and agree to secret negotiations with Devlet-Girey II.

On March 22, G.I. Golovkin informed Sheremetev that Peter I gave an audience to Davydenko and “accepted his proposal and gave him an oral answer and sent him back to where he came from, only so that he could be trusted that he was here at the court of the Tsar’s Majesty , a passport with a state seal was given." Considering the secrecy of the operation, the chancellor wrote that the field marshal would be notified of Peter I’s response after his arrival in St. Petersburg. You can judge the king’s response from the document given at the end of the article. It cannot be dated, as indicated in the entry below the text, to 1714, when the Ottoman Empire and Russia were no longer in the state of war that the tsar wrote about. Nor can it be dated to the period between November 1712 - June 1713, the time of the third state of war with the Sultan, since Peter I was outside Russia from July 1, 1712 to March 14, 1713, and Devlet-Girey was on April 3, 1713 already deprived of the Khan's throne. Considering that the recording of Davydenko’s “questioning” was made on March 20, 1712, that Golovkin wrote to Sheremetev on March 22 that the tsar had received the Moldavian, that the draft version of the “pass” for Davydenko was written on the 13th, and Belova “for the state seal" (as mentioned by Peter I) - March 23, 1712 50, then the document can be dated March 13-23, 1712 - most likely, this is nothing more than a version of the instructions for Davydenko.

In it, Peter I expressed his readiness to conclude a Russian-Crimean treaty through Sheremetev with Devlet-Girey II, accepting all its conditions, and the Khanate into Russian citizenship. For the head of Charles XII, the Khan was promised 12 thousand bags of levki (1 million = 450 thousand rubles). In order to thus gain freedom of hands in the north, they promised to send all Russian forces to help Crimea. Given the impossibility of capturing the Swedish king, Peter I asked to burn Turkish military and food warehouses in Moldova.

On April 4, the captain received riding horses, 100 ducats and, together with the three Moldovans accompanying him, was sent from St. Petersburg. But he barely managed to get to Kyiv when the first information about the conclusion of a 25-year truce in Istanbul (April 5, 1712) arrived there.

Kiev governor D.M. Golitsyn detained Davydenko, informing St. Petersburg that if the khan handed him over to the Turks, the war would begin again.

On May 29, the Chancellor approved the “retention” of the secret agent, ordered all his documents to be taken away, but allowed him to expel his wife from Moldova. On the advice of P.P. Shafirov, instead of the Moldavian, in response to the “Khan’s request”, Lieutenant Colonel Fedor Klimontovich was secretly sent with a formal purpose - for the exchange of prisoners and with a real one - to find out the true intentions of the Khan. Chikhachev was ordered to give Devlet-Girey II “for his goodwill” plate furs worth 5 thousand rubles, i.e. in the amount of the previous traditional “salary” to the khan, but only secretly, face to face, so that this offering would not be perceived as a past tribute, it was forbidden to give furs if they were asked to hand them over openly. According to the instructions, Chikhachev was allowed to promise to send letters personally from the tsar to Bakhchisarai and even make occasional “rewards” if the khan raised the issue of renewing the tribute, but the main thing was to find out “about his inclination, the khan, towards the country of the royal majesty and about his intention in that is, in all sorts of ways through whom it is possible to scout. And don’t mention the weather (tribute)” 53. The Russian government may have judged the future nature of subject relations in Crimea by analogy with the Russian-Moldovan treaty of 1711.

The Turkish-Tatar victory on the Prut, Russia's open reluctance to fight in the south, the compliant position of the Russian ambassadors in Istanbul - all this raised the prestige of the khan in his own eyes. For 10 days Devlet-Girey II did not receive Chikhachev in Bendery under the pretext that he arrived without a letter from the tsar. Only on August 23, 1712, the lieutenant colonel was honored with a short and cold reception, at which the khan stated that he would not allow prisoners to be exchanged, and henceforth he would not allow anyone to come to him without letters from Peter I, after which he rejected the secret offering. When asked what could be told to the tsar about Davydenko’s case, the khan replied, “I have nothing to say now and didn’t say anything more.” This ended the audience. One of the Tatar officials later explained to Chikhachev that the Khan would like to have “cordial love” with Russia, but that he was dissatisfied with the fact that Russia twice, in 1711 and 1712, ignored Crimea when concluding treaties with the Turks, that Russian-Crimean relations are characterized by a state of “no peace, no battle,” and if they had entered into negotiations with the Tatars, then the Russians would have received peace in the south in a week. Only if, in addition to the agreement with Ahmed III, a separate Russian-Crimean agreement is drawn up, the khan will “gladly” accept any gift, even one sable 54.

Defiantly emphasizing his equal rank with the tsar, the khan, following the example of Peter I, ordered his vizier Dervish Mohammed Agha to write to B.P. Sheremetev that there would be no “offences” to Russia from the Crimea, that prisoners would be allowed to be ransomed, but not exchanged , so that the Russians would let Charles XII through Poland to Pomerania and that after the departure of the Swedish king, the khan would accept any offering “as a great gift” 55. The field marshal answered the khan’s vizier that Russia wanted to live in peace with Crimea, that the king “would not leave the khan forgotten.” for his good,” and reproached the Cossacks for robbing the royal convoys 56.

Apparently, Devlet-Girey avoided discussing the issue of changing vassalage in 1712. But Davydenko’s proposals were not his, Davydenko’s, fantasy. Five times - in 1699, 1703, 1708 or 1709, 1711, 1712. - he addressed the Russian government on the same issue. He could only learn some information from the khan, for example, the content of his conversations with V.I. Faded in Crimea in 1709. Only ignorance of the political realities in Eastern Europe forced Davydenko to exaggerate the significance of the diplomatic game of the Crimeans, however, without any intent. The contradictions between the hostile actions of Devlet-Girey II and his promises to submit to the “white king” should not surprise us, just as they did not surprise his contemporaries. With the help of the “bait” that the khan “threw” through Davydenko, he apparently tried to draw Russia into negotiations and return Russian-Crimean relations to the state of 1681. The connection between the khan’s proposal and his desire to start negotiations with the Russians is most clearly visible from his conversations that same summer with the lieutenant colonel of the dragoon grenadier regiment of the Russian service, Pitz, who was looking for his wife and children captured by the Crimeans in Bendery. Devlet-Girey, confident that his words would be conveyed to their intended destination, “reprimanded” Pitza for the Tsar’s refusal to negotiate with Crimea and pointed out that Russia, first of all, should conclude a peace treaty with him as a sovereign sovereign, “who can go wherever he wants.” , and that the Tatars “people go wherever they want, and the werewolf goes there” 57.

Russian-Crimean secret contacts had one positive result: they worsened relations between the Swedes and Tatars. Since September 1712, Russian ambassadors in Istanbul warned the sovereign about the inevitability of a new war if he did not withdraw his troops from Poland. And indeed, on November 3, 1712, Ahmed III declared war for the third time in order to achieve the maximum possible concessions from the Russian ambassadors. The same goal was pursued by the Turkish plan - to “drop” the Swedish king with the Poles and Cossacks into Poland, if possible without Turkish escort. The Swedes by that time had intercepted part of Devlet-Girey II’s dispatches to Sheremetev and the Saxon minister Ya.G. Flemming, from which Charles XII learned that his head was a stake in the game not only for the khan. Former great Lithuanian hetman J.K. Sapega agreed with the Crimean ruler to hand over the “northern lion” to the great crown hetman A.N. Senyavsky during the passage of Charles XII through Poland and receive an amnesty from the Polish king for this. If successful, Khan could enter into an alliance with Augustus II, which would have an anti-Russian orientation 58. Charles XII refused to go on the winter campaign of 1712/13 in Poland and after a battle with the warriors of Devlet-Girey II and the Janissaries he was exiled to Thrace. In March 1713, Ahmed III threw 30 thousand Tatar cavalry into Ukraine, which reached Kyiv. In Left Bank Ukraine, the son of Devlet-Girey II with 5 thousand Nogais of the Kuban Horde, Nekrasovites and 8 thousand Cossacks destroyed villages and churches in several districts of the Voronezh province.

Therefore, the irritation of the Russian government against Davydenko is understandable; On January 26, 1714, he was arrested in Moscow, in the Posolsky Prikaz, and exiled to the Prilutsky Monastery in Vologda for two years. On December 8, 1715, Golovkin ordered the Kyiv governor D.M. Golitsyn to expel Davydenko through Kiev abroad, giving him 50 rubles, “without listening to any of his lies, and in the future, if he comes to Kiev, and therefore expel him, because Your Excellency knows about him, what a man he is the most formidable" 59.

The increased potential of the new Russia, on the one hand, and the infringement of the autonomous rights of Crimea by the Ottomans, on the other, forced the khans, who more than once found themselves in critical situations, to consider the possibility of transferring to Russian citizenship. Requests from Nureddin Gazi-Girey in 1701 and Devlet-Girey in 1702-1703. can be compared with similar appeals of the Moldavian and Wallachian rulers, Georgian kings, Balkan and Caucasian peoples to the rulers in the 17th-18th centuries. But the real possibility of a Russian protectorate over Crimea under Peter the Great was small. Under him, Russia had not yet accumulated the great power experience that allowed Catherine II to annex the “independent” Crimea (and Eastern Georgia) in 1783 with relative ease.

The difficult Northern War forced us to worry about maintaining peace with the Ottoman Empire, and in Russian politics the topic of changing the khan's vassalage, as a rule, was discussed silently, if at all. Crimea had to be abandoned, as well as Azov in 1637. In addition, events on the Russian borders - the uprising on the Don, Mazepa’s betrayal, the separation of the Zaporozhye Sich in 1709, the formalization of the transfer of Mazepa’s heir (Ukrainian hetman F. Orlik) to the protectorate of Crimea in 1710, the Ottoman-Crimean victory on the Prut - showed the Tatars that the Russian-Turkish confrontation was not over yet. Therefore, the Crimean proposals regarding submission to Peter the Great in 1711-1712. were rather a sounding board of Russian politics. In addition, the rulers of Bakhchisarai foresaw that after the transition to Russia, enrichment through robbery and the sale of Ukrainian slaves would become impossible. Therefore, it can hardly be assumed that the diplomatic game of the khans with Russia had widespread support in Crimea. The policy of the feudal leaders of the Crimea remained basically anti-Russian, and in 1711-1713 Russian diplomacy barely managed to “fight off” the resumption of the annual “security tribute”, which was stopped in 1685. Nevertheless, the Nogai and Crimean feudal lords began talking about switching sides northern neighbor at the moments of the “tide” of Russian power to the south. This was the case after the Azov campaigns in 1701-1702, during the Prut campaign and during Minikh’s campaigns against Khotyn and Iasi in 1739. From the second half of the 18th century. The Crimeans realized that organizing round-ups of East Slavic slaves was not only risky, but also almost impossible. The semi-nomadic population of Crimea began to settle on the earth when the military superiority of the Russian Empire over Turkey became obvious. In 1771, 60 years after Peter the Great’s manifesto to the Nogais and Tatars, when the second Russian army of Major General V.M. patronage" of Catherine I. Following ten years of "independence" (1774-1783), on April 9, 1783, the last of the "Tatar kingdoms" was included in Russia. The Romanov Empire finally acquired the legacy of Genghis Khan in Northern Eurasia.

The Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) contains a handwritten undated instruction note from Peter I, indicating his agreement to accept the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey II (reigned 1699-1702, 1708-1713) under the Russian protectorate.

What he (Moldavian captain Alexander Davydenko) had previously proposed about the case of the Crimean Khan and then was not accepted because there was peace, and did not want to give reasons for war.

And now, when the Turks do not want to be satisfied with anything, but urgently declared war for the sake of malice alone, then we, in our truth, hoping for God in this war, and for this reason we are glad to accept the Khan and fulfill his wishes,

Why would he, without wasting time, send a man of his own with full power to Felt Marshal Sheremetev, to whom he also sent a full power from the Tsar's Majesty for interpretation, without writing to the Tsar's Majesty, so as not to lose time in those clerical errors.

It was not given to him in the letter so as not to fall into enemy hands. And in order for the khan to believe that he was with the royal majesty, he was given a herd under the state seal.

There is nothing the Khan can do better to show loyalty (hereinafter crossed out: and friendship) and pleasantness to the Tsar's Majesty than by taking away the Swedish carol, which will also be of benefit to him, for when the king is in his hands, we will be free from the Swedish side and We will help the Khan with all our might. And in addition to this, we promise the khan (Next crossed out: you. Perhaps it was supposed to be written: thousand) two thousand meshkof (A bag (kes) is a unit of monetary measurement equal to 500 levkas. 1 levok was then 45 kopecks).

If the king cannot be brought, then at least they would burn the shops that are found from the Danube to Bendery and in other places.

Under the text: These points were removed from the case of the Voloshan resident Alexander Davydenka, who was sent from Moscow under arrest to Vologda to be kept there in a monastery in which he was decent, in 1714.

RGADA, Original royal letters Op. 2. T. 9. L. 112-113. Handwritten copy. Right there. L. 114-115

The text is reproduced from the publication: Negotiations on the transition of the Crimean Khanate to Russian citizenship under Peter the Great // Slavs and their neighbors, Vol. 10. M. Science. 2001

**There is evidence that Peter I visited the Crimean land, in Kerch.
*Vyacheslav Zarubin, Deputy Chairman of the Republican Committee of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. 2013

The end of the regency of Tsarina Sophia Alekseevna, who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1689, was marked by two attempts to secure the southern borders of the state. They went down in history as Golitsyn’s Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689. The portrait of the prince opens the article. Despite the fact that the main task assigned to the command could not be completed, both military campaigns played an important role both during the Great Turkish War and in the further development of the Russian state.

Creation of an anti-Turkish coalition

In 1684, on the initiative of Pope Innocent XI, a union of states was organized, called the “Holy League”, and consisted of the Holy Roman Empire, the Venetian Republic and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - a federation of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His task was to confront the aggressive policy, which by that time had gained strength, of the Ottoman Empire, as well as its Crimean vassals.

By concluding an alliance treaty with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in April 1686, Russia assumed responsibilities to carry out the military tasks assigned to it as part of the overall strategic plan for the union’s struggle against Muslim aggressors. The beginning of these actions was the Crimean campaign of 1687, which was led by Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn, who was the de facto head of the government during the regency of Princess Sophia. Her portrait is located below.

Burning steppe

In May, the Russian army, numbering 100 thousand people and reinforced by detachments of Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks, set out from the left bank of Ukraine and began advancing towards the Crimea. When the warriors reached the borders of the Crimean Khanate and crossed the border river Konka, the Tatars resorted to the old, and centuries-proven method of defense against the advancing enemy - they set fire to the steppe throughout the territory lying in front of them. As a result, the Russian army was forced to turn back due to lack of food for the horses.

First defeat

However, the First Crimean Campaign did not end there. In July of the same year, the army of the Crimean Khan Selim Girey overtook the Russians in the area called Kara-Yylga. Despite the fact that his army was inferior in number to the army of Prince Golitsyn, the khan was the first to launch an attack. Dividing the forces at his disposal into three parts, he launched simultaneously frontal and flank attacks.

According to surviving historical documents, the battle, which lasted 2 days, ended in victory for the Crimean Tatars, who captured more than a thousand prisoners and about 30 guns. Continuing their retreat, Golitsyn's army reached a place called Kuyash and built defensive fortifications there, digging a ditch in front of them.

The final defeat of the Russian-Cossack forces

Soon the Tatars approached them and camped on the opposite side of the ditch, preparing to give the Russian-Cossack army a new battle. However, the army of Prince Golitsyn, which had traveled a long way across the waterless steppe scorched by the enemy, was in no condition to fight, and its command invited Khan Selim-Girey to begin negotiations on concluding peace.

Having not received a positive response on time, and trying to avoid the complete destruction of his army, Golitsyn gave the order for a further retreat. As a result, having withdrawn at night, the Russians began to retreat, leaving the enemy an empty camp. Having discovered in the morning that there was no one behind the defensive structures, the khan began pursuit, and after some time overtook the Russians in the Donuzly-Oba area. In the ensuing battle, Prince Golitsyn's army suffered heavy losses. According to historians, the reason for this military failure was the extreme exhaustion of the warriors caused by the burning of the steppe.

The result of the first trip

Nevertheless, the events of 1687, which became part of the military campaign that went down in history as the Crimean Campaigns, played an important role in the struggle of the Holy League against Turkish expansion. Despite the failure that befell the Russian-Cossack army, he managed to divert the forces of the Crimean Khanate from the European theater of military operations, and thereby facilitate the task of the allied forces.

The second campaign of Prince Golitsyn

The failure of the military campaign of 1687 did not plunge either Princess Sophia or her closest boyar, Prince Golitsyn, into despair. As a result, it was decided not to stop the Crimean campaigns, and as soon as possible to strike again at the Horde, who had become more frequent in their predatory raids.

In January 1689, preparations began for a new military campaign, and in early March, the army of Prince Golitsyn, this time increased to 150 thousand people, set out in the direction of the Crimea, which was the nest of the hated Khanate. In addition to cavalry regiments and infantry, the warriors also had powerful artillery reinforcements, consisting of 400 guns.

Considering this period of the war of the European coalition with the Ottoman Empire and its vassals, it should be noted the very unworthy actions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which entered into negotiations with Istanbul and forced Russia to carry out the Crimean campaigns alone. Something happened that was repeated many times in subsequent years, both in both World Wars and in many local conflicts - the main burden fell on the shoulders of Russian soldiers, who watered the battlefields with their blood.

Tatar attack repelled by artillery fire

After two and a half months of travel, in mid-May the Russian army was attacked by the Tatars near the village of Green Valley, located three days’ journey from Perekop. This time the Horde did not set fire to the steppe, saving food for their own horses, and, waiting for the Russian army to approach, they tried to sweep it away with an unexpected blow from their cavalry.

However, thanks to reports from patrols sent forward, the enemy did not achieve the effect of surprise, and the artillerymen managed to deploy their guns in battle formation. With their dense fire, as well as rifle volleys from the infantry, the Tatars were stopped and then thrown back far into the steppe. A week later, Prince Golitsyn’s army reached Perekop, the isthmus connecting the Crimean peninsula with the mainland.

A close but unattainable goal

No matter how great was the desire of the prince’s warriors, having overcome the last kilometers, to break into the Crimea, from where from time immemorial the daring raids of the Horde on Rus' were carried out, and where countless lines of captured Christians were then driven, they failed to make this final throw. There were several reasons for this.

As it became known from the testimony of captured Tatars, throughout the entire territory of Perekop there were only three wells with fresh water, which were clearly not enough for the prince’s army of thousands, and beyond the isthmus the waterless steppe stretched for many miles. In addition, the losses inevitable during the capture of Perekop could greatly weaken the army and call into question success in the battle with the main enemy forces concentrated on the peninsula.

In order to avoid unnecessary losses, it was decided to postpone further advance and, having built several fortresses, accumulate in them the necessary supply of food, equipment and, most importantly, water. However, it was not possible to implement these plans, and soon the prince gave an order to retreat from their positions. This is how Golitsyn’s Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689 ended.

Results of two military campaigns

Over the next centuries, there were repeated discussions about what role the Crimean campaigns of 1687-1689 played during the Great Turkish War, and what benefits they brought directly to Russia. Different opinions were expressed, but most historians agreed that thanks to the military campaigns discussed above, Russia was able to significantly facilitate the task of the allied forces fighting the army of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Having deprived the Turkish Pasha of the support of the Crimean vassals, the Russian army significantly limited his actions.

In addition, Golitsyn’s Crimean campaigns contributed to the rise of Russia’s authority in the international arena. Their important result was the termination of the payment of tribute, which Moscow had previously been forced to pay to its long-time enemies. As for the internal political life of the Russian state, the failed Crimean campaigns played a very important role in it, becoming one of the reasons for the overthrow of Princess Sophia and the accession of Peter I to the throne.

| During the period of the 17th century. Russo-Turkish War (1686-1700)

Russo-Turkish War (1686-1700)

In 1686, Russia joined the coalition of Austria, Poland and Venice, which fought the Ottoman Empire, and in 1687 and 1689, the Russian army under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn made two unsuccessful campaigns in the Crimea, which failed due to the inability to supply a large army in the deserted and waterless steppe.

More successful were the campaigns of Tsar Peter I near Azov in 1695-1696. As a result of the second campaign, with the help of a fleet specially built for this purpose, it was possible to take this strongest Turkish fortress, capturing its garrison. According to the Peace of Constantinople, concluded in July 1700, Azov and the adjacent lands, on which the Taganrog fortress was built by order of Peter, passed to Russia.

The next military clash between Russia and Turkey occurred already in 1710, when, under the influence of the Swedish king Charles XII, who, after the defeat at Poltava, found himself in Turkish Bendery, the Sultan began a war with Russia. Peter I overestimated his strength and, having concluded an alliance with the Moldavian ruler Dmitry Cantemir in April 1711, headed to the Prut at the head of an army of 40,000. The Russian Tsar counted on the uprising of all Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire and the help of the ruler of Moldavia, Cantemir, and the ruler of Wallachia, Brancovean. However, when on July 5, 1711, the Russian army reached the Prut, here it was met by Cantemir, who had been expelled from his principality, with a small army. The Wallachian ruler did not provide any help to the Russians at all.

Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689

As part of the coalition, Russia was entrusted with the fight against the Crimean Khanate. The first campaign against Crimea took place in May 1687. It was attended by Russian-Ukrainian troops under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn and Hetman Ivan Samoilovich. The total number of troops that set out on the campaign reached 100 thousand people. More than half of the Russian army consisted of regiments of the new system. However, the military power of the allies, sufficient to defeat the Khanate, turned out to be powerless in the face of nature. The troops had to walk tens of kilometers through deserted, sun-scorched steppe, malarial swamps and salt marshes, where there was not a drop of fresh water. In such conditions, the issues of supplying the army and a detailed study of the specifics of a given theater of military operations came to the fore. Golitsyn's insufficient study of these problems ultimately predetermined the failure of his campaigns.

As people and horses moved deeper into the steppe, they began to feel a lack of food and fodder. Having reached the Bolshoi Log tract on July 13, the Allied troops were faced with a new disaster - steppe fires. Unable to fight the heat and the soot that covered the sun, the weakened troops literally collapsed. Finally, Golitsyn, seeing that his army could die before meeting the enemy, ordered to go back. The result of the first campaign was a series of raids by Crimean troops on Ukraine, as well as the removal of Hetman Samoilovich. According to some participants in the campaign (for example, General P. Gordon), the hetman himself initiated the burning of the steppe, because he did not want the defeat of the Crimean Khan, who served as a counterweight to Moscow in the south. The Cossacks elected Mazepa as the new hetman.

The second campaign began in February 1689. This time Golitsyn, taught by bitter experience, set out into the steppe on the eve of spring, so as not to have a shortage of water and grass and not to be afraid of steppe fires. An army of 112 thousand people was assembled for the campaign. Such a huge mass of people slowed down their movement speed. As a result, the campaign to Perekop lasted almost three months, and the troops approached the Crimea on the eve of the hot summer.

In mid-May, Golitsyn met with Crimean troops. After volleys of Russian artillery, the rapid attack of the Crimean cavalry choked and was never resumed. Having repelled the onslaught of the khan, Golitsyn approached the Perekop fortifications on May 20. But the governor did not dare to storm them. He was frightened not so much by the power of the fortifications as by the same sun-scorched steppe lying beyond Perekop. It turned out that, having passed along the narrow isthmus to the Crimea, a huge army could find itself in an even more terrible waterless trap.

Hoping to intimidate the khan, Golitsyn began negotiations. But the owner of Crimea began to delay them, waiting until hunger and thirst would force the Russians to go home. Having stood for several days at the Perekop walls to no avail and being left without fresh water, Golitsyn was forced to hastily turn back. Further standstill could have ended in disaster for his army. The Russian army was saved from a larger failure by the fact that the Crimean cavalry did not particularly pursue the retreating ones.

The results of both campaigns were insignificant in comparison with the costs of their implementation. Of course, they made a certain contribution to the common cause, since they diverted the Crimean cavalry from other theaters of military operations. But these campaigns could not decide the outcome of the Russian-Crimean struggle. At the same time, they testified to a radical change in forces in the southern direction. If a hundred years ago Crimean troops reached Moscow, now Russian troops have already come close to the walls of Crimea. The Crimean campaigns had a much greater impact on the situation within the country. Their unsuccessful outcome contributed to the fall of the government of Princess Sophia.

Azov campaigns of 1695-1696

After the Crimean campaigns and the overthrow of Sophia in the Russian-Turkish war, there was a six-year lull, during which Russia was actually ruled by the mother of Peter I, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. After her death in 1694, Peter, who led the country, resumed active hostilities. The goal of the new campaign is the Turkish fortress of Azov at the mouth of the Don. The change in direction of the main attack was explained by a number of reasons.

The unsuccessful experience of Golitsyn’s campaigns predetermined the choice of a more modest goal. The object of the attack was now not the center of the Khanate, but its eastern flank, the starting point of the Crimean-Turkish aggression towards the Volga region and Moscow. With the capture of Azov, the land connection between the possessions of the Crimean Khanate in the Northern Black Sea region and the North Caucasus was disrupted. Owning this fortress, the tsar strengthened control not only over the Khanate, but also over the Don Cossacks. In addition, Azov opened Russia's access to the Sea of ​​Azov. The relative convenience of communication also played an important role in choosing the destination of the hike. Unlike the road to Perekop, the path to Azov ran along the rivers - Don and Volga - and through a fairly populated area. This freed the troops from unnecessary convoys and long marches across the sultry steppe.

The first Azov campaign began in March 1695. The main blow to Azov was dealt by the army commanded by generals Avton Golovin, Franz Lefort and Patrick Gordon (31 thousand people). In this army, the tsar himself was in the position of commander of the bombardment company. Another less significant group led by Boris Sheremetev operated in the lower reaches of the Dnieper to divert the troops of the Crimean Khan.

Azov was a strong Turkish fortress, surrounded by stone walls, in front of which rose an earthen rampart. Then followed a ditch with a wooden palisade. Upstream of the river there were two stone towers on different banks, between which three iron chains were stretched. They blocked the path along the river. The fortress was defended by a 7,000-strong Turkish garrison.

In July 1695, all Russian troops finally gathered under the walls of Azov and on the 8th they began shelling the fortress. At one of the batteries, bombardier Pyotr Alekseev himself stuffed fans and fired around the city for two weeks. This is how the tsar’s military service began, which he reported with the note: “I began to serve as a bombardier from the first Azov campaign.”

It was not possible to achieve a complete blockade of the fortress. The Russians' lack of a fleet allowed the besieged to receive support from the sea. The delivery of food to the Russian camp along the river was prevented by towers with chains. They managed to take them by storm. But this was, perhaps, the only success of the first Azov campaign. Both assaults on Azov (August 5 and September 25) ended in failure. The artillery was unable to break through the fortress wall. Those who stormed acted uncoordinatedly, which allowed the Turks to regroup their forces in time to fight back. In October, the siege was lifted and the troops returned to Moscow. The only trophy of the campaign was a captured Turk, who was taken through the streets of the capital and shown to the curious. Sheremetev operated more successfully in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, capturing a number of Turkish towns (Islam-Kermen, Tagan and others).

After the failure of the first Azov campaign, the tsar did not lose heart. Peter discovered remarkable strength in himself to overcome obstacles. Returning from the campaign, he began to prepare for a new campaign. It was supposed to use a fleet. The place of its creation was Voronezh. The king himself worked here with an ax in his hands. By the spring of 1696, 2 ships, 23 galleys, 4 fire ships were built, as well as a significant number of plows, on which Peter set out on a new campaign in the spring of 1696.

In the second Azov campaign, the number of Russian forces, led by governor Alexei Shein, was increased to 75 thousand people. To divert the troops of the Crimean Khan, Sheremetev’s group was again sent to the lower reaches of the Dnieper. As a result of joint actions of the army and navy, Azov was completely blocked. The attacks of the Crimean troops, who tried to prevent the siege, were repulsed. The onslaught from the sea was also repelled. On June 14, 1696, Cossack plows attacked a Turkish squadron with a 4,000-strong landing force that had entered the mouth of the Don. Having lost two ships, the squadron went to sea. Following her, the Russian squadron entered the sea for the first time.

The Turks' attempt to break through to Azov was unsuccessful, and their ships left the combat area. After the naval victory, the assault Cossack detachments under the command of atamans Yakov Lizogub and Frol Minaev (2 thousand people) launched an attack. They were knocked out of the internal fortifications, but managed to gain a foothold on the rampart, from where direct shelling of the fortress began. After this, Peter ordered all troops to prepare for a general assault. However, it did not come. Deprived of support, the garrison threw out a white flag and surrendered on July 19, 1696.

The capture of Azov was Russia's first major victory over the Ottoman Empire. In honor of this victory, a medal with the image of Peter was knocked out. The inscription on it read: “The winner is by lightning and water.” For successful actions in the second Azov campaign, governor Alexey Shein was the first in Russia to receive the rank of generalissimo.

The consequences of the Azov campaigns for the history of Russia were enormous.
Firstly, they expanded Peter’s foreign policy plans. Access to the Sea of ​​Azov did not solve the problem of Russia’s access to the Black Sea, since the path there was reliably covered by Turkish fortresses in the Kerch Strait. To solve this problem, Peter organizes a Grand Embassy to European countries. With their help, the Tsar hoped to oust the Turks from Europe and achieve Russia's access to the Black Sea shores.
Secondly, the experience of the Azov campaigns convincingly confirmed the need for further reorganization of the Russian armed forces. The Azov campaigns marked the beginning of the creation of the Russian fleet. In 1699, the recruitment of a new regular army began. Its distinctive feature was the lifelong service of conscripts (in foreign regiments, soldiers, as a rule, went home after a military campaign).

The mission of the Grand Embassy did not live up to Peter's hopes. In Europe in those years, the confrontation between France and Austria intensified, and no one sought a serious fight with Turkey. In 1699, at the Congress of Karlowitz, representatives of the Holy League countries, with the exception of Russia, signed peace with the Ottoman Empire. A year later, Russia also made peace with Turkey. According to the Treaty of Constantinople in 1700, the Russians received Azov and the surrounding lands and stopped the tradition of sending gifts to the Crimean Khan.

The collapse of the Black Sea hopes leads to a reorientation of Peter's foreign policy plans towards the Baltic shores. Soon the Northern War began there, which became a turning point in the history of Russia.

Based on materials from the portal "Great Wars in Russian History"